


your love is sunlight

by freezerjerky



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Summer, well post the first film, which is as good as post canon in the fic world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezerjerky/pseuds/freezerjerky
Summary: “You’re probably dirty, Newton, wash up before you get into bed,” Hermann mutters, rolling over to face him.“It’s too late, babe. I’m already getting dirt all over your precious sheets,” Newt teases, seemingly delighting in the glare Hermann sends his way.That’s when Hermann notices them, the dark freckles on Newt’s face. He’s not sure how he hasn’t seen them sooner, likely because he’s gotten so used to seeing Newt. But here he is now, in his freckled glory, in Hermann’s bed. Despite his annoyance, Hermann smiles at him.in which Hermann and Newt enjoy their new life together and Hermann enjoys Newt's freckles





	your love is sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> For [valiantlyuniquenight](https://valiantlyuniquenight.tumblr.com) who wanted a sun soaked ode to Newt's freckles, essentially, which I, as a freckles enthusiastic, happily will indulge
> 
> Plus, we all could use a nice summer day, right?
> 
> Title is from "Sunlight" by Hozier. Expect every fic I write for the next 30 years to have a Hozier lyric title

The first time Hermann notices Newt’s freckles is when they’re still writing letters. After a few months of sending off notes to each other, after realizing how attracted he is to the intellect and wit of Newt, he breaks and has to do an image search. He finds a few very embarrassing photos from his social media accounts, and a few more professional photos from conferences or for his job. There’s one photo, though, in acutely high resolution and he can see the individual constellations dotting Newt’s face, across the bridge of his nose, sweeping up to his forehead. Hermann closes the image as like a guilty man caught looking at something forbidden. He searches out the photo several times more before he ever meets Newt in person.

During their time working together, the freckles are mostly faint. They spend their days locked up in the lab and even if they do leave the Shatterdome, it’s usually for work related reasons and at nighttime. Hermann can still see the smattering of freckles on Newt’s face, but they’re faded and dull. It’s alright, because everything else about Newt in those days is radiantly bright and almost obnoxiously loud. Almost.

Then, suddenly, the world is at their feet. They can leave, they can go wherever they wish and see the sun or the stars or whatever the world outside is offering these days. After working hard for so many years, they both agree to take time off, to work on the research and the papers they’ve been wanting to write for so long. When fall comes, they’ll both return to the comfortable arms of academia, but until then they both have no stronger desire than to just be.

They rent a house outside of a quiet city. It’s nondescript, but not too quiet. Newt hates the quiet, absolutely detests it, and Hermann hates when Newt’s not happy. Their spring is spent dancing around each other, trying to figure out what to make of their new life together. And then it happens as natural as anything, while sitting on the couch. Newt puts his head on Hermann’s shoulder and Hermann drops a kiss to his temple and that’s that. It’s not some grand, sweeping declaration, nor some feverish stripping into the bedroom. It’s seamless, the final acknowledgment of something they’ve both known for a long time. They’ve both wanted to love each other for a long while but now they’re given the chance to love and to love freely as they see fit.

 

Summer comes early that year, or maybe Hermann’s unaccustomed to marking the passage of seasons. Still, winter and spring seemed to blend together far more easily than this. The sun is bright and radiant and Newt seems drawn to it in remarkable ways. (Not a moth to a flame, but one light to another.) He’s often out in the yard hours before Hermann’s even got the motivation to dress. Newt’s new hobby is gardening, though he also uses this chance to catch bugs or whatever other creatures he can find lurking about. A few years ago, Hermann would have found this disgusting, but after a short jaunt into the inner workings of Newt’s brain, he’d even go so far as to say that he finds this endearing. Charming. Cute. Just not something he wants too close always.

One morning when Newt’s out far too early, he comes in and climbs back into bed. Since the change in their relationship, Newt’s moved everything from his room into Hermann’s and they use Newt’s room as storage and a spare room, in case any guests would show up.

“You’re probably dirty, Newton, wash up before you get into bed,” Hermann mutters, rolling over to face him.

“It’s too late, babe. I’m already getting dirt all over your precious sheets,” Newt teases, seemingly delighting in the glare Hermann sends his way.

That’s when Hermann notices them, the dark freckles on Newt’s face. He’s not sure how he hasn’t seen them sooner, likely because he’s gotten so used to seeing Newt. But here he is now, in his freckled glory, in Hermann’s bed. Despite his annoyance, Hermann smiles at him.

“You’re the one who’s going to have to wash them, then,” Hermann warns, but he sounds far too fond.

The summer light looks beautiful, Hermann thinks, streaming into the room and across Newt’s back. He watches with rapt attention as Newt sits up, tugs off his shirt and tosses it aside. He’s at least had the decency to remove his shoes before climbing back into bed.

“You think I’m hot,” Newt says, far too casually, as he leans down to kiss Hermann. 

“I would never use that specific word.”

“I'm a smoking hot babe and you love looking at me.”

“So what if I do?” Hermann's smiling softly and he can't resist the urge to kiss him again. 

They don't leave bed until nearly noon that morning but Hermann can't really say that he minds. He suspects that Newt feels the same.

 

Their afternoon is spent in the garden, Hermann reading under the shade of a large umbrella as Newt digs in the mulch of his flowers. Newt’s general interest in gardening is the practical, herbs and vegetables, but he’s started a small plot of flowers. There’s no clear reason why, but Hermann has his suspicion when small bouquets start appearing on their kitchen table in the morning or resting on his pillow at night. It turns out that Newt is a romantic and that Hermann loves these small romantic gestures. (Hermann is, perhaps, a romantic too.)

Hermann looks up as Newt is wiping the sweat from his brow. It’s nearing the hottest time of the day and really Newt should also be relaxing and enjoying the afternoon, but there’s no use asking him to stop a task when he’s in the middle of it. He turns to look at Hermann and waves at him, and Hermann waves back with a smile. In the next moment, Newt strips off his tank top and tosses it in Hermann’s general direction. The urge to shout at Newt for throwing a sweaty shirt at him is immediately swallowed down at the sight of Newt without his shirt.

There’s a strength to his arms and the hint of softness in his stomach and Hermann loves it the same as he loves every other bit of Newt. His torso is, of course, covered by the garish yet beautiful tattoos, but Hermann knows his body well now. (Or is working on knowing it as well as someone can know another body.) Even though he can’t see them, Hermann still suspects there’s a dusting of freckles visible under the ink, maybe a smattering teasing at the back of his neck. He’s already ready to cancel his evening plans in favor of investigating each and every new and old spot on Newt’s well touched skin.

When Newt’s done in the garden, he sits with Hermann and lets him read to him aloud from his book. It’s nothing particularly exciting, and Hermann’s surprised that he manages to hold Newt’s attention, but he does, until Newt nods off for an afternoon nap in the patio chair. Hermann feels at peace in this moment, under the summer sun with someone he loves dearly.

 

Some days they’ll go into the city, or take a drive to someplace new to explore. It’s all very domestic, the way they carry on. Besides a few brief warnings about sunscreen, Hermann seems to have gained an eagerness for Newt in the sun. With each passing day, there’s more freckles to discover. They’ve spread over Newt’s forehead and down to his shoulders from his neck. At night, Hermann presses open mouthed kisses to the moles spread on Newt’s upper arms, showing through the slightly faded colors of his tattoos. 

A trip to the beach puts this all on display and Hermann is distracted when Newt’s swim trunks up and show a bit of thigh, there’s freckles there too. (And perhaps a few faded bruises, but Hermann will not admit to those.) They’re not as dark as the dots across Newt’s charming face, but they’re there, a reminder of the kisses he’s laid there, of the comfort of resting a hand on Newt’s thigh.

“You’re getting a bit red there,” Newt says, approaching the towel Hermann’s seated at. He’d been attempting to collect some shells along the shoreline and is returning with his spoils, emptying them out of his pockets and laying them beside Hermann in an elegant line.

“Red?”

“Sun?” Newt says, laughing. “Let me re-apply your sunscreen for you, babe.”

“Oh, of course.” Hermann reaches for the sunscreen he’s laid beside himself. He’s wearing a gauzy button-up but it is rather thin, and his neck and forearms are more exposed than usual.

Newt, needless to say, instructs him to remove the shirt so he can reapply the lotion to his back and chest.

“I’m worried you’ll burn through this material and I don’t want to have to deal with you whining and ordering that I rub aloe on you for a week,” Newt explains as his hands work methodically down Hermann’s back.

“So you’re putting your hands all over me now? What a sacrifice that must be for you,” Hermann says drily.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Let’s just let you get burnt to a crisp.”

Hermann grumbles but lets Newt continue. Newt tans, Newt currently has a delightfully ruddy pallor that suits the summer. For Hermann, he’s going to be one of two things: burnt bright red or pale enough to make it clear he works indoors. He could even venture as far as to say that he prefers being indoors to the outside. Lately, though, to see Newt glow like this, with his bright smiles and his sun kissed skin and his freckles, Hermann can’t say that he really minds the outdoors and the sunlight all that much. The danger of burning seems worth having this much joy and this much beauty at his disposal.

“You’ve got some freckles on the back of your neck,” Newt remarks. “I haven’t really noticed them before. It’s cute.”

“Yes, I suppose I did freckle as a boy,” Hermann says, as though that explains anything. Even as a child he didn’t spend nearly this much time in the sun.

Newt laughs. “Me too, but it was all over, everywhere. I was a freckly kid, and then they faded as I got older and I was glad about it. I hated them growing up.”

“Oh,” Hermann exhales. Had he been fascinated by something about Newt that he hates about himself? That hardly seems right or fair to Newt.

“I like them now, or I’m neutral. I don’t really think about parts of my body in terms of like or dislike, there’s just things that are there, things that do well, and things that don’t.”

“I like them,” Hermann remarks softly.

“Oh, I know.” Newt sounds like he’s pleased with himself, as he rightly should be. “You spent about twenty minutes at the hotel this morning tracing the freckles you could find on my arm. I like yours too, even if I’m just learning about them today. I’ll have to do some more exploration later tonight.”

The color rises to Hermann’s cheeks then quickly fades. There’s nothing wrong with his partner realizing that Hermann’s enthusiastic about some part of him. Just because he’s spent so long repressing these sorts of things about himself, it doesn’t mean Hermann has to continue on like this. He’s free to love and explore and touch as he likes. As long as Newt doesn’t mind, he’s given this freedom to be the type of partner he wants to be.

“I like what they represent,” Hermann explains. “The warmth. The sunlight. Freedom.”

“You mean not being shut up in a lab yelling at each other all day?” Newt asks, even though he knows the answer. “There’s a really weird part of me that kinda misses that, you know. That’s always going to miss that just a little bit.”

“It’s the yelling, isn’t it? You miss me shouting at you.”

Newt breaks out into radiant laughter and Hermann takes a few moments to reflect on how much he loves the sound, how much he loves his Newton. Then Newt pats his shoulder and starts to help him back into his shirt before he’s peeling away back towards the water. Much like the tide, Hermann feels an odd confidence that even though he ebbs away, he’s always going to come back to him. He’s comforted by this thought as he watches Newt rush forward into the waves.

 

At first, Hermann was wary of the hammock. He likes the idea of relaxation and he likes the idea of having places to lay with Newt, but had some hesitance on the subject of something so loosely tethered and climbing onto it with his leg. After about two weeks of Newt assisting him onto the hammock for his afternoon crossword puzzles or reading, though, he was more than willing to consider it a success.

This afternoon, Newt’s mowing their small lawn as Hermann works through the puzzle. He glances up at him on occasion and when he does meet Newt’s eye, receives a wave or a smile in return. This feels like the type of thing that is far too sweet to be real, something he’d criticize other couples for doing, or behaving like. Frankly, Hermann doesn’t care. He wants to be sweetly, sickeningly in love and he doesn’t care if someone else knows it. They’ve saved the damned world, after all, and deserve this domestic happiness so very much.

He’s closed his eyes to rest for a moment when the hammock dips slightly, the telltale sign of Newt joining him. The first time they both laid on the hammock, they nearly toppled it over but now it’s down to a science. Summer is fading, so they’re both taking advantage of these sun blessed afternoons, of doing work or relaxing in the bright, not terrifying world they’ve helped build. If they can enjoy it in each other’s arms, it’s all the better.

“Hello, you,” Hermann says. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he shifts as Newt shuffles under his arm.

“Thirty three down is phalange, in case you’ve forgotten basic biology,” Newt says after a beat.

“I haven’t gotten there yet.” He cracks open an eye. Even at the beginning of the summer, he’d tell Newt with his sweat and the grass flung on his cheek to get off of him. Now he doesn’t mind, he doesn’t care. Hermann drops a kiss to the top of Newt’s head. Newt peers up at him and Hermann’s breath catches in his throat for just a moment. It seems absurd to be so stunned by someone so familiar, but Hermann’s always been a romantic.

“I’m gonna miss our summer afternoons,” Newt says. 

It takes Hermann a few moments to process what he’s saying because he’s distracted by Newt’s face, both the proximity of it and the features of it- his expressive green eyes, his charming nose, his soft chin, those delightful freckles that Hermann’s had dreams about counting. (Literal dreams where he spends hours and hours cataloguing Newt’s body and the pieces of it, breaking him down to simple mathematical concepts. Except Newt is probably the one thing in his life that can’t be broken down so easily by math. It’s impossible to truly calculate something that’s so profoundly all encompassing, so infinite in the context of his life.)

“There’s always weekends,” Hermann explains. “And next summer.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I’ll miss our summer afternoons as well. You know I like seeing you so free.”

“I like seeing  _ you  _ so free,” Newt amends.

“Me? I sit outside and read and watch life go by, that’s no different from what I do normally.”

“You sit outside and do things you like to do, you get to give me these sexy unguarded looks, one time you let me get you off on the hammock, you let me take your shirt off at the beach. Unguarded and free means different things for different people.”

“I suppose you have a valid point there, Newton. I feel like myself in your company. I’m comfortable with you, physically and emotionally.”

“Aw shucks, Herms. That’s the nicest thing a guy’s ever said to me.”

Newt presses forward, kissing Hermann softly. He’s giving him a cheeky grin when he pulls away.

“Wait a moment,” Hermann says after he’s processed everything Newt’s said for a few long moments. “I’ve never let you get me off on the hammock.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Newt answers, moving his mouth dangerously close to Hermann’s again. “I guess we better remedy that, then.”

Hermann kisses him in response.

 

They stay in the hammock until nearly evening. Hermann runs over a list of his favorite spots on Newt, for the first time audibly. Newt laughs at the preference for a particular mole on his ass, but blushes when Hermann lists his entire face as a priority. He cannot possibly bring himself to choose from the freckles that dot his delicate skin there.

The sky is still tinged with the faintest hint of red when they carefully climb out of the hammock, exchanging kisses. Hermann’s leg aches a bit and his stomach is rumbling, but more than a small part of him wishes that they could stay outside through the night. Wishes that they could never be parted and live in this summer they’ve created with each other in perpetuity. It’s his reward, Hermann thinks, for doing something right in his life, for doing good. And he hopes Newt feels the same, feels that he is the best thing about his life here.

When the back door is shut firmly behind them, the first summer stars have started to glimmer in the sky. Part of Hermann wants to sit outside and watch them fill up the night sky, with their distant and endless brightness. He knows though that he’s got his own, better constellations to fill his life and his forever in his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ pendragoff and twitter @ newtguzzler


End file.
